One of the things you have to get used to when living in South America is that the standards for service just aren’t very high. Some of the expensive places do feature good service, but on a day to day basis it’s not much to write home about. Until today.
Matt, Di, the kids and I went to this burger place we had heard about. No reviews. Just that it existed.
Ray’s American Burgers. I was excited because it happened to be located right next to my favorite ice cream shop in town (second only to Moo Time in Coronado, CA). A burger and an ice cream cone sounded like a wonderful start of an afternoon that featured hints of blue a blue sky, which has been MIA for the last two weeks. I don’t know how people do it in Seattle.
We took the bus into El Centro and only had to walk a block or two and the sign was easy enough to see from across the park and we headed to lunch. Walking in, I was interested to see a desk with cords and cables just running around in the corner of what was a small room. The walls were white and decorated with nothing except construction paper that had hand written Ecuadorian food items that were not to be found on the menu.
There was also a picture of a huge black guy eating a huge burger taped to construction paper. Not a lot of black guys in Ecuador. So the inside was really boring and what wan’t really boring was really random.
The room was maybe 14ft. by 14ft. and had 6 or so tables that he had ordered from the Crate & Trash Can catalog. We had five people and moved two tables together, but one could not seat four people.
Ray gave us an extra “new” menu that was a piece of paper that was identical to the crappy laminated ones we had in front of us.
The first menu item was not a burger and nor was the last so Ray’s American Burgers’ menu did not begin or end with burgers. Instead they were sandwiched in between a hot dog and a polish hotdog. The Polish hot dog in Ecuador was described “a New Jersey thing.” Oh and he’s from North Carolina. The first burger on the menu was called Hamburgers Ray’s Way. Now I didn’t order this particular item (came with ketchup, mayo, onions, and tomato) but I couldn’t understand why the name was plural. In addition to having poor grammar (yes, just like this blog), Ray’s burger was also the cheapest and most boring thing on the menu.
He (Ray) initially took the kids’ order then walked away and then came back and then took our order and then forgot the kids order and then came back for that. So after doing the “Ordering Lunch” version of the Hokey Pokey, he told us that his “help” had just stepped out but would be back in a few moments. He was half right. It didn’t take forever but it was 10 minutes before the cook showed up to make our food.
I ordered a bacon cheeseburger with a Fanta and a side of fries. Matt and Di got the sausages and the kids got regular hotdogs.
The food didn’t take too long (we were the only table) and came out at relatively the same time, which is rare in Ecuador. Di and I had ordered sides of fries. And our meals came with fries. I didn’t count them, but if I had, I wouldn’t have needed to take off my shoes. It was an embarrassingly small portion of fries. The kids’ hot dogs came cut in half and on a hamburger bun.
The entire time there had been Beatles music playing. I am in no way complaining about Beatles music being on when I am eating lunch. And I really didn’t care if it was a too loud. I like the music and I can talk to Matt and Di anytime. But it was coming from cheap little speakers that were connected to his laptop and was obviously just on the “Beatles” section on his iTunes. I wondered if we were going to find out what the next band was. Would we get some Bee Gees or maybe some Beyoncé?
So halfway through our meal he comes out and tells us that he is bringing out more fries, which I appreciated, but wasn’t sure why it took so long to relay that to the short-fried table.
The next set of fries were really hot and undercooked and spread out over a plate making a perfectly sizeable portion of fries look like small potatoes. (GET IT?!) It also came with very little ketchup and mayonnaise just on the side but amongst the fries. They could have just pushed the fries to one half of the plate and put the ketchup and mayo on the other side and it would have looked like more fries and have been much more aesthetically pleasing
Matt asked for a fork and ray came back with a bag of plastic sporks. After finally opening the bag on the wrong side (away from the stems), he said, “I’ll let you help yourselves,” and left Matt with the entire bag.
So now that I was finishing my burger, which really was fine (Not good. He didn’t take a temperature preference, but I have had worse.), I decided now would be a good time to get that Fanta I ordered. I asked him about it and he had forgotten my order but I didn’t care. He forgot Di’s too but that’s ok. I got my orange drink and they brought four cokes instead of one. Worse things have happened obviously. Whatever.
Ray asked us, passing by, if we liked the Beatles (still the only music playing), and we of course said yes and added our two cents and then Ray told us this great story that went, “One time, I sang karaoke, to Revolution.” Thinking he was about to start talking about band camp, we stared at him blankly and then realized the story was over. We more or less applauded and he went on his way.
I had some of the Fanta but Piper loves orange soda (who doesn’t?) and wanted it and I figured a full coke for a half empty (or half full) Fanta was a good trade. I thought I had smoked her in that deal until I tasted the coke and it was flatter than a Russian ballerina.
I got over it and we were ready for the bill and to go get some ice cream. After being overcharged by three dollars (which included the sodas we didn’t order), we got the bill back and the total seemed correct. The numbers for the individual items (all of which existed on the menu) were wrong but the bottom line is all that’s really important.
We left Ray’s American Burgers without being very impressed with him or his burgers. We hope he stops claiming to sell American food and representing gringos with that kind of service and experience. I feel bad harping, but the only things he had going for him were his proximity to ice cream and those four longhaired Brits.
No comments:
Post a Comment